On new orders, it appears that export-driven orders continue to pick-up at the expense of domestic-driven orders, although according to the Markit press release, firms did report an easing in export orders growth compared with previous months.

Here's the corresponding chart, showing a rise in exports:

Markit/Barclays

Basically, Britain's smaller businesses are busy and future orders seem robust. It's just the biggest companies that are reporting a decline in orders.

However, the team at Barclays warned that Britain's manufacturing sector is still on fragile ground (emphasis from the bank):

Nonetheless, we remain cautious on manufacturing in light of a lack of broad-based continued improvement in sentiment.

This was further echoed in the Q4 2015 EEF Manufacturing Outlook (released 7 December 2015) in which they downgraded their 2015 and 2016 manufacturing growth forecast to -0.1% (-0.8pp) and 0.8% (-1.0pp) respectively.